Reformatting destroys Boot Camp!

Hello -
I have a Macbookbook pro 2.16ghz. I had been using Tiger as my OS but started having problems with my computer so I decided to give myself a fresh reformat of the drive. I had been running Boot Camp Beta and had already gone through the process of partitioning my drive and everything was honky dory. Unfortunately, after I reinstalled Tiger I am unable to boot up in Windows. If I hold down the option key it will give me the option of bolth drives but when I choose windows it just re-starts on the mac side.

When I found out that Boot camp is no longer compatible with Tiger, I bit the bullet and upgraded to Leopard. Unfortunately I am still running into the same problem

I tried running boot camp assistant and when I insert my Windows XP disk the computer spits it back out.

Well of course reformatting a hard drive will erase Windows. It erases everything on the drive, partition or not, it will erase everything. try reformatting the entire drive and installing Leopard. Then Boot Camp.

Ok, so I tried what you suggested and I guess my version of Windows is not going to work with Leopard. After I repartitioned my hard drive with boot camp assistant it asked to insert my windows (xp professional, I have no idea if its 32 bit or not, but its not that old) and it just spits it back out. I tried inserting my roommate's cd (Vista brand new came with his Dell) and it recognized it but it wouldn't install because boot camp said the drive was not formatted correctly, ntfs or something like that, I cant quite remember the error exactly. So it seems by updating to Leopard half my computer will not work. And as I posted before this all started when I wanted to refresh my Tiger with a clean slate. Why does apple do this???? Oh, and I almost forgot, my disk drive no longer seems to recognize cd's! It just spits them out. I cant even go to a music store and buy a cd to import it in itunes. I guess apple only wants me to download from the itunes store. I this a monopoly? I think so!

Oh, and I almost forgot, my disk drive no longer seems to recognize cd's! It just spits them out. I cant even go to a music store and buy a cd to import it in itunes. I guess apple only wants me to download from the itunes store. I this a monopoly? I think so!

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That's what happens when the CD drive can't read the CD. If you're getting that behavior with several CDs which are known good then your drive is probably on the fritz. Also, OEM CDs will not install on anything but the computer they came with; these generally have a BIOS check in the installer to make sure you don't install it on a machine that didn't come from the manufacturer so you will need a retail Windows XP SP2 (or higher) cd. As for the Windows partition, as the previous poster said, if you reformatted the drive, it's gone; you'll need to reinstall XP from scratch.

What do I do if my drive is on the fritz??? Do I need a new drive. My computer is only a couple of years old When I bought it, it was the top of the line macbook pro 2.16 ghz.

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If it's still under warranty talk to Apple and see if you can get it replaced; if you got the AppleCare plan it should still be covered (that machine is from early 2006 IIRC). If not, you'll either need to do it yourself (≈$200) or send it out to a company such as MacResQ (≈$300). I would test the drive with a couple of pristine, commercially-pressed CDs or DVDs and see if it still has the same behavior and/or get one of the CD drive cleaning kits and give that a shot before taking the DIY route, though.

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